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What did our editorial forebears learn from slinging a new Lincoln around in the dirt? Not much, but it probably was fun.

Motor Trend’s first editor, Walt Woron, once told me that engineering editor Chuck Nerpel’s idea of action photography was to show a car sliding in the dirt. Walt never fully understood why, and I can’t say I do either. They probably did it because it was easy to get a vehicle drifting sideways in the dirt without hitting anything, and it chewed up far fewer tires.

Just about any car can spin its tires in the soft stuff, but the Lincoln carried Ford‘s first new postwar overhead-valve V-8, in this car displacing 317 cubic inches and rated at 160 horsepower. Lincoln was first to get the new OHV engines, which didn’t show up in Fords and Mercurys until 1954. The 317 was a member of Ford’s Y-block engine family, although shortly thereafter, the engine lineup split into the MEL (Mercury, Edsel, Lincoln) family V-8, and smaller, less powerful Y-blocks for the Fords, including the Thunderbird. When the current Town Car soon goes out of production, it’ll mark the end (at least for now) of Lincoln as a supplier of V-8-powered, rear-drive luxury sedans like this one.

Back in the day, many test cars were borrowed from dealers, and a car would have to be returned in as-new condition, which didn’t mean four worn-out, ready-to-blow bias-ply tires. It’s doubtful this stunt was part of any real “testing.” It was most likely done just for the camera.

Coverage: March 1963
Today this blurb would read “Mercury Goes Away.” The Monterey hardtop was NASCAR’s weapon of choice. We’d love to have the big engine in the foreground: a dual-quad 427, with a single carb manifold on a separate stand to the left of the page. The twin-carb engine went on to power the Ford Mark IV winner at Le Mans in 1967.